The Home Brew Process

The Homebrew Process - Fighting Brewers Brewery

This post is for all who have asked me what these boys are up to when they brew their beer.  (This post was written by Joe.  I haven't the slightest idea of what half of this means.)

Step 1: Heat up water in hot liquor tank (turkey fryer).

While its heating, take the yeast out of the fridge and put in your pocket to warm the yeast up.

Check the temperature. You want it to be approximate 170 degrees, sufficent so that when you combine it with your grain the resulting temperature is approximately 152 degrees. You usually want to use 1.15-1.25 gallons of water per pound of grain. There are calculators on the internet which will give you the exact temperature needed for your mash.

You want to take approximately 1 gallon to 1 1/2 gallons of water from the hot liquor tank and put it in the mash tun (cooler) to bring the walls of the cooler up to the temperature so that when you add your grain and water it doesn't drop the temperature too low.

As your water comes to temperature take a half gallon pitcher and add water and grain (1 scoop of water, 1 scoop of grain, etc.) until. If you calculation was correct the resulting temperature of the mash should be 152. The consistency of teh mash should be like oatmeal. Finally, add your pH buffer to ensure the ph is 5.2. Close the cooler and let it sit for an hour.

While you were waiting you should have heated more water, about 6 gallons to 185 degrees. This the is water you will use to sparge with. At this temperature the enzyme activity will cease in the mash and sugar conversion will stop. After the hour is up, you will start the vorlof. For this, open the valve on the mash tun slowly to allow a slow flow of wort. This is done so that the grain can create a natural filter. Once you are no longer getting grain husks coming out, move your drain tube to a bucket and pour the wort you collect back in the mash tun using a spoon to spread it out. Open the valve a litle more and drain completely.

Once it has drained completely, check the amount of wort you have collected. You want to end up with 6-6.5 gallons of wort for the boil. From here you can do a single or double batch sparge. A double will help if you are having trouble extracting sufficient sugars. Take the water you heated during the mash, pour a sufficient amount into the tun, stir throughly and repeat the steps above until you have 6-6.5 gallons of wort.

Once you have your wort it is time to start the boil. Crank your burner on high, cover and wait for the boil. Be sure to check often because it will boil over. When the wort is close to boiling it will start to foam up. This is from the proteins in the wort. When the foam start to some up stir and lower the heat.

Once the boil is under control put in your 60 minute hop addition. This is when you start your time. From here just add your hop additions whenever you determined.

Once the boil is over you need to cool the wort to around 75 degrees. I use an immersion wort chiller which is a copper coil that runs cool water through it. You place it is the wort at the end of the boil to clean it and let it run once it is out of the boil. Otherwise you can dip the kettle in an ice bath.

Once it is cooled, transfer it to a sanitzed carboy. Be sure to shake it to get oxygen in the wort. Then pitch your yeast.

Fermentation should start in about 24 hours. Let it ferment for about a week and until the specific gravity of the wort is constant. This is determined by using a hydrometer. Once it has finished fermenting, transfer the wort to a smaller carboy and let it still for another 2 weeks. From there it is time to bottle or keg. To bottle, transfer the wort to your bottline bucket with .5-.75 cups of sugar in a simple solution. This will add enough sugar for carbonation. Once all the bottles are filled and capped, after two more weeks you can chill and enjoy.